Lawmakers, policymakers, education experts and human rights activists on Sunday jointly urged that the proposed School Education Bill explicitly guarantee the constitutional right to free and quality education, stressing that public education must remain a core responsibility of the state. The call was made at a discussion organized in Kathmandu by the National Campaign for Education (NCE) Nepal, a civil society network that campaigns on education rights. The interaction brought together stakeholders from across the political, administrative and rights spectrum, and they converged on a single message: the country's school-sector legislation must strengthen, not soften, the state's obligation to its schoolchildren.

A Unified Voice from Diverse Stakeholders

The Kathmandu discussion stood out for the breadth of consensus among participants who otherwise represent very different constituencies. Lawmakers who will eventually vote on the bill sat alongside policy specialists, education experts and human rights defenders, yet all of them underlined the same central demand.

Participants unanimously stressed the need to ensure the constitutional right of free and quality education. In practical terms, that means the bill should be worded so that no child can be denied schooling because of an inability to pay, and so that quality is treated as a binding state obligation rather than a distant aspiration. For those present, the bill is widely seen as a defining test of how seriously the state takes its commitments to the next generation.

The core demands that emerged from the discussion were clear:

  • The School Education Bill should guarantee the constitutional right to free and quality education in explicit, enforceable language.
  • Public education must remain a responsibility of the state, with the government retaining its leading role in providing and overseeing schooling.

Why the Bill Carries Constitutional Weight

Nepal's Constitution, promulgated in 2015, enshrines education as a fundamental right. It obligates the state to provide free basic education and free education up to the secondary level in accordance with law. That qualifying phrase is precisely why the School Education Bill matters: a constitutional promise becomes real for ordinary families only when parliament translates it into legislation, budgets and institutions.

The bill is expected to replace the Education Act of 1971, a law written long before Nepal adopted federalism and before the current constitution redefined the relationship between the state and its citizens. Updating that framework requires decisions on how responsibilities will be shared among the federal, provincial and local governments, how public schools will be resourced, and how standards will be enforced across a system in which 753 local governments now play a leading role in running schools.

Because these choices will shape classrooms for decades, the demand for an explicit constitutional guarantee in the bill is aimed at removing ambiguity. When the right to free and quality education is written into the law in enforceable terms, families, teachers and local authorities gain a clear legal basis to demand schooling that is genuinely free and genuinely good.

Public Education as a State Responsibility

Why the State Role Matters

The second recurring emphasis of the discussion was that public education must remain a state responsibility. The position reflects a long-standing argument in Nepal's education debate: public and community schools serve a large share of the country's children, including many from families least able to afford alternatives, so the quality of those schools is a matter of equity as much as education policy.

A System Under Strain

Nepal's school system has for years been marked by a visible gap between well-resourced private institutions and public schools that often struggle with infrastructure, teacher management and learning outcomes. In that context, a strong state role is presented as the safeguard that keeps education a public good rather than a service that only some families can buy. Stressing that education is a public good, participants at the NCE Nepal event positioned the bill as the instrument through which the state can reinforce that role. How the final legislation balances state provision with the presence of private schools will be closely watched once deliberations advance.

Federalism, Timing and the Road Ahead

The bill arrives at a decisive moment for Nepal's school sector. Under the federal structure adopted in 2015, local governments now administer much of the school system, while the federal parliament retains authority over the legal framework that governs it. The School Education Bill is the vehicle meant to settle that division of labor in law, and it has been in the pipeline for years as governments worked to align education legislation with the new constitutional order.

For civil society, the Kathmandu discussion was an attempt to ensure that the voices of education advocates and rights activists reach lawmakers before the bill is finalized. The unanimous stance adopted at the event signals what stakeholders will be watching for as the process moves forward: an unambiguous guarantee of free and quality education, and a clear affirmation that public schooling is the state's job.

For the millions of Nepali children who depend on public schools, and for the families who sacrifice to educate them, the measure of the School Education Bill will ultimately be whether it converts constitutional language into well-run classrooms, qualified teachers and real learning. Sunday's discussion in Kathmandu made clear that a broad coalition of lawmakers, experts and activists intends to hold the legislation to exactly that standard.